Saturday, March 9, 2013

Two Years On Blogger

On March 9, 2011, I submitted my first post to my blog. It was an introduction to a new home for a column that has been active since 2008. From 2008-2010, it was active in a newsletter. For a few months afterward, it remained active on Facebook. For the last two years, Blogger has been my home and it has been a great home indeed. I have not only had the opportunity to submit my work for others to read, I have also had the opportunity to seek out blogs written by fellow bloggers as well.

For my second anniversary, I will share some statistics as to the activity on my blog throughout the last two years. While I could compare and contrast the first year to the second, blogging is a growing process, and the fact that this blog is growing is what matters most. I may make some comparisons and the math can easily be done, but otherwise, I am going to give current numbers as to the progression of the blog, plus name my top ten posts with the most views.

In all honesty, I did not submit as many posts from 2012-2013 as I did from 2011-2012. The difference being that I have been juggling college, work, and fictional writing alongside my blogging, which is quite the challenge. I do my best to ration it out in the fashion I find the most appropriate. Fortunately, after two years, this here is my 181st post. While this means it's the 48th post since my first anniversary, it's still a high number. I'm just nineteen posts away from reaching the monumental 200th post, which any post that has a flashy number attached to it is worth celebrating. My goal is to reach my 200th post in 2013, which is most definitely achievable.

The page views seemed to remain at level, but overall, as I write this post, I have had a total of 13,327 pageviews. That in itself is an incredible number. I was beyond thrilled when I saw that I reached 10,000 pageviews. 13,327 pageviews shows that Caponomics is only making further progress and I'm ecstatic about it. Along with these views, there are fourteen followers, which is quite a healthy number of people who keep up with this blog. Anyone who reads from this blog is more than welcome to become a follower and joining is not difficult at all.

Now I shall look back at the content from the past two years and evaluate which are the ten most read. At the moment we speak, every post in the top ten has had at least 100 views, three figures is incredible, any which way you look at it. Here are the top ten...

#10- Let's Be Brutally Honest: Orange Juice Pulp Is Oh So Burdensome- This is the first time a post from this particular segment made the list and I actually wrote this one in August 2012, so this is the first time it was eligible for this list and it seems rightfully so. Here, I made mention at the fact that when drinking orange juice, the pulp simply interferes with an refreshing experience of waking up in the morning. While pulp is where the healthy nutrients reside, orange juice seems to have enough nutrients that you can do without the fingernail-like additions. I always have fun writing posts like these, because it's just a random nab that others may simply be able to relate to and while movies and politics are more likely to have critics and analysts, who ever said orange juice was off limits?

#9- Shark Tank Season 3, Episode 4- This is one of the returning posts from last year's top ten, only this one was #5 on the 2012 list and has since dropped to #9. I did, however, continue to get readers who enjoyed the episode of Shark Tank where a woman's with a towel that allows children to change in place known as "Show No" struck a deal with Lori Greiner and has since appeared in Disney World. Plenty of people have looked up Shark Tank by simply typing in what they want to know about the show and have been led to Caponomics. Incredible how things work!

#8- Shark Tank Season 3, Episode 3- This is another example of Caponomics being popular for recaps of Shark Tank, only this one did not even make the top ten last March. From the trend I have been seeing, it was the segment with "You Smell" that brought in plenty of readers and how there was a heated argument between each of the sharks before Robert Herjavec came out on top. This was also the episode that featured "Chord Buddy" and a cologne that smelled like money.

#7- Shark Tank Season 4 Premiere- The most recent episode of Shark Tank I had the opportunity to review was the season premiere, the season premiere of a season that would feature a complete season. Unfortunately, due to being stuffed with obligations, I haven't had the time to catch new episodes and some evidence could be how I did not find the opportunity to blog for two months. I did, however, make mention to some of the clueless responses from the entrepreneurs who were trying to get deals from the sharks and a trend of reasonable offers, but entrepreneurs that just wanted more. From what I've seen, this seems to be an ongoing trend this season. This, like #10, is one of my newer submissions, and in fact, the newest submission on this list.

#6- My Prediction: Anne Burrell Will Be The Next Iron Chef- While this prediction unfortunately did not come about, it still caught the attention of plenty of my readers. While it dropped from the second slot to the sixth, that's the way things go. People read to read and unfortunately for Anne Burrell, the fact she was on The Next Iron Chef is yesterday's news. It was Alex Guarnaschelli, who I'm not too fond of, that became the first female Iron Chef since Cat Cora departed. Well, it was a prediction and Anne Burrell is still an excellent and entertaining chef.

#5- Memorable Sax Solos- This is one of just four of the posts that doesn't have to do with Shark Tank that is on this list. Shark Tank is relevant, so it belongs. As for this post, it was relevant when it was written after the death of Clarence Clemons. Who doesn't love a good sax solo, though. You have Clarence Clemons and "Jungleland," Raphael Ravenscroft and "Baker Street," Eddie Money and "Take Me Home Tonight," and the list keeps going on and on and on. I think it's appropriate that I should mention that I will be doing a top ten ranking of my favorite sax solos within the upcoming months, but that will be when I get to it and I can appropriately rank the ten best sax solos.

#4- The Best Of Shark Tank Season 3- I must say that the third season of Shark Tank was the ultimate thrill ride. While they considered having guest sharks each episode, they decided to instead promote Mark Cuban to a full-time shark and have Lori Greiner sit in for Barbara Corcoran on four episodes. This was not just memorable because of the sharks, you also had some memorable moments, my favorite having to be the pitch for "I Want To Draw A Cat For You," which was a zany idea that featured a man who drew cats to fit special occasions, like a Hoops & Yo-Yo card, only better and without noise. He struck a deal with Mark Cuban. This and many more events are captured in my ode to the third season of a good program.

#3- Television Review: Shark Tank Season 3 Premiere- Unlike a few of my top ten viewed posts on this list, this one actually went upward, from seventh to third. From what I saw, one of the main questions people had in mind was why Kevin Harrington was let go without an explanation? The best assumed explanation would be that he did not stick out as the other sharks did and Mark Cuban would stick out better, but that's only an educated guess. Nevertheless, Harrington was one of the smartest and most successful sharks on the panel (heck, he's a pioneer of the infomercial industry). As for the premiere itself, it was a beginning of a successful season.

#2- Shark Tank Season 3, Episode 11- If we were only discussing posts I wrote from March 9th of last year to March 9th of this, this would be #1 on the list. This was written after year one, so it didn't appear in last year's post. This is the episode that featured two of the season's most memorable pitches. One of which was James Martin of "Copa Di Vino" making his clueless return and the other was Mark Sullivan and his "Sullivan Generator" that scientifically creates gold out of ocean water. Aside from the term "Caponomics," anything having to do with the Sullivan Generator has brought in more viewers than any other topic of interest. In exchange, this post is one of two with over 300 pageviews. In fact, it has 575 pageviews, so it's in second place all to itself and does not see any release coming.

#1- Top Notch Television: Ebert Presents At The Movies- Not much has changed with regard to the #1 slot on this list. Last year, this post surged with viewers and in August 2011 brought me over 1,000 views in a month, which was unheard of in my mind. However, in the world of blogging, anything is possible and anybody and everybody can check out your work. Unfortunately, this show was placed on an ongoing hiatus, due to funding issues, but Roger Ebert continues to review. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, who was one of the critics alongside Christy Lemire, is currently assisting Ebert to watching and reviewing films with a team of critics that include former At The Movies critic Richard Roeper as Ebert's undergoing rounds of therapy. Nevertheless, Ebert watches and reviews when he is able.

Like last year, I will also submit some memorable moments from the posts and monumental moments from last year that are worth noting...

Caponomics On Amazon- I have become active with submitting book reviews to Amazon and have thirty-nine at the moment we speak. I will provide a link if you wish to see my page and as of March 9, 2013, 79% of readers found my reviews helpful (22 out of 28 to be exact) and I rank 93,655th out of all of the reviewers on the site. Visit here if you want to read my reviews: https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1TF3TCRIZN7BZ?ie=UTF8&ref_=sv_ys_4

Two Successful Predictions... Or Three- I have come to realize that I have successfully predicted two things correct via my blog. The first was a victory of Phillip Phillips on American Idol 11. I was confident with his style and how he could make songs like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" his own, he was the person to beat. His victory song, "Home," is such a phenomenal hit, and his choking up at winning the program proved to be quite emotional. I also predicted that Jessica Sanchez would be the runner-up and got the top five (Phillip, Jessica, Skylar, Joshua, and Hollie) correct.

My NFL predictions were ultimately accurate. At the beginning of the season, I predicted that the Baltimore Ravens would win the Super Bowl... and they did. I'm quite pleased with this outcome, as I predicted they would win before, but they won it now and that's what matters most. I also predicted that Ray Lewis would retire if they won the Super Bowl, which he did and rightfully so. He went out on top, which is the best way to go. John Elway did it and anyone who has the opportunity should do the same (and not do what Brett Favre did). It's also funny that the team I predicted would do worst actually made the playoffs. This season, it happened to be the Minnesota Vikings. Let's see how they come out for next year, only that post will not be written until the beginning of September.

The 2012-2013 cycle was quite a year and we'll have to see what the 2013-2014 cycle brings. I will do my very best to submit more to this blog and will definitely make it to 200 posts by the end of the year, maybe 250, MAYBE even 300, but we'll just have to see. 200 posts is a definite goal and a reasonable one. Hope you enjoy this blog and I look forward to submitting more, because there is much more in store for Caponomics!

About Me

I discovered my devotion for writing when I started writing about school tournaments and events for my high school newsletter. After spending time at this position, I began writing a column titled "Caponomics." Originally, "Caponomics" was a school television show about tournaments, but it quickly became the name of the column that gave me the opportunity to speak what was ever on my mind.
After graduating, I decided that I wanted to continue following the path to becoming a successful writer. My dreams are to pursue success in the field of writing horror fiction and this column.
"Caponomics" has been active on Blogger since 2011. While my primary area of concentration are reviews for books, works of literature, and updates on my horror fiction writing and projects for my web show, "Literary Gladiators," I cover a wide realm of topics on this blog. You may also see posts about film, television, politics, sports, food, music, and anything else that crosses my mind and deserves attention.
Hope you enjoy!